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In the first part of my 2014 in review series which may or may not continue after this post, I’m going to briefly analyse the books I’ve read this year. Unfortunately I only managed to read 31 books, down from 41 in 2013 and failing to reach my target of 43 by quite a wide margin. My main reason for this is that I more or less stopped reading outside of my university courses between January and May due to coursework and life related things going on, so hopefully this downward movement is only a blip! Anyhow, here’s the list:

The Book Thief (2005) – Markus Zusak

Britain and Ireland: From Home Rule to Independence (1999) – Jeremy Smith

Utopia (1516) – Thomas More

Doctor Faustus (1604) – Christopher Marlowe

Oroonoko (1688) – Aphra Behn

Scotland’s Future (2013) – The Scottish Government

Blair Unbound (2007) – Anthony Seldon

The Fault in our Stars (2012) – John Green

Long Walk to Freedom (1995) – Nelson Mandela

The Trowie Mound Murders (2014) – Marsali Taylor

Of Mice and Men (1937) – John Steinbeck

Rachel in Love (1987) – Pat Murphy

Ulysses (1922) – James Joyce

Europe: In or Out? (2014) – David Charter

The Cuckoo’s Calling (2013) – J.K. Rowling

Nausea (1938) – Jean-Paul Sartre

The Silkworm (2014) – J.K. Rowling

The Great Gatsby [re-read] (1922)– F. Scott Fitzgerald

A Game of Thrones (1996) – George R.R. Martin

A Clash of Kings (1998) – George R. R. Martin

A Storm of Swords (2000) – George R. R. Martin

A Sentimental Journey (1768) – Laurence Sterne

Gulliver’s Travels (1726) – Jonathan Swift

Common Sense (1776) – Thomas Paine

Salmond: Against the Odds (2010) – David Torrance

The Constitution of the United States of America (1787) – James Madison

Britain and Ireland: From Home Rule to Independence (1999) – Jeremy Smith

The Cuckoo’s Calling (2013) – J.K. Rowling

Blair Unbound (2007) – Anthony Seldon

Oroonoko (1688) – Aphra Behn

A Sentimental Journey (1768) – Laurence Sterne

Ulysses (1922) – James Joyce

Unrated:Scotland’s Future (2013) – The Scottish Government
The Constitution of the United States of America (1787) – James Madison

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And here I’ve [broadly] charted on a map where each book is set or about. Obviously fictions which aren’t set in our world, like A Song of Ice and Fire, aren’t included, and for non-fiction books I’ve had to take some liberties:

Almost every book here written before 1900 is due to my English Literature course, hence why they’re so clustered together. It’s a good mix, I think, although as the map shows there is a very strong northern European, British-American bias in the books I’ve read. Every author, with the exception of Nelson Mandela, is either European or American – I’ll definitely try to widen the writers I read next year. I think I’ve managed a healthy balance between fiction and non-fiction; I’ve neither lived wholly in bleak reality nor untempered fantasy. In terms of preference, I’m not surprised to see George R. R. Martin consistently quite high given I tend to rate quality of storytelling in fiction above quality of prose (I imagine I’ll have a lot to say about that in a future post!). Otherwise there’s no clear pattern. I need to make a caveat for Ulysses however; while it was the most excruciatingly painful novel I’ve forced myself to read, while I considered the whole thing a project to ridicule critics, upon finishing I just couldn’t get it out of my head and having looked back at it I do find a lot of worth in there. So this does betray one potential problem with my ratings, in that I rate purely in enjoyment while reading rather than any other means, which brings me back to the discussion of value best saved for another day.

Looking forward to the great reads 2015 brings!

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UPDATE: I forgot to mention the books’ gender ratio. Only 23% of the books I read were written by women, which is pretty shocking to consider. Some of this might be down to the amount of ‘classics’ I’ve read this year, although considering these gave me Aphra Benn, Mary Shelley and Jane Austen, who I probably wouldn’t have read otherwise, it’s possibly this actually buffed the number up. Unless I’ve subconsciously given greater preference to male authors (could be similar to this phenomenon) it’s clear women still face a harder task getting represented in the most high-profile and bestselling books.